In a new interview with Vanity Fair, Rick Kirkham, who was featured in Tiger King as the producer of Joe‘s reality show, reveals that Joe‘s music is really by The Clinton Johnson Band members Vince Johnson and vocalist Danny Clinton.

“One time, Joe got a little bit drunk and high, and we actually coaxed him into singing part of one of the songs. He couldn’t even hold a tune,” Rick shared. “It was just so ludicrous. It was a big joke within the crew and staff that it wasn’t him [singing in the videos]—but he was damned insistent to anyone and everyone, including us and my studio crew, that that was him.”

Vince and Danny, who has sadly passed away, first got involved with Joe when he asked them to make songs for his reality show for free. They agreed, thinking the show would give them exposure.
Joe would give them a subject to write about, and then they would come up with a song for him. However, the band didn’t know that Joe would try to pass off the songs as his own.

“It was a couple of months and two or three songs [into the collaboration] when I was on YouTube one night and just happened to look up Joe Exotic,” said Vince. “And there he was, lip-syncing and acting like the ghost of Elvis [in these music videos].”

Vince continued: “He bamboozled me about his reality show—that it was coming soon and he would make everything right as rain. I just wanted the proper credit.”

In the end, Vince said he and Danny ended up going along with the ruse because they didn’t expect the songs and music videos to ever go anywhere.